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Chapter 4: A Tragic Loss
1,273 Words
"No!"
Seeing Konan impaled through the throat, Alex's soul nearly fled his body.
If she died, he would die too.
Uchiha Obito's strike was too fast, too vicious.
Alex hadn't even seen how Obito attacked. It was a blur, and Konan's throat was pierced.
He couldn't react. Even Konan, a Kage-level shinobi, had no time to dodge.
"Huh? Why is there no blood?"
Alex paused, then quickly understood.
Dance of the Shikigami!
It was Konan's unique paper ninjutsu, allowing her to turn her body into paper, granting immunity to most physical attacks.
"You're not dead?!" Obito's pupil contracted violently. He was shocked.
Just as Alex thought, Konan was not dead.
Her expression hadn't even changed.
She ignored the black receiver in her throat. Instead, she waved her hand, and a massive swarm of burning white paper flew from her body...
No, those were ignited explosive tags.
While Obito was stunned, she plastered tag after tag onto his body at point-blank range.
Then, she detonated them.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A continuous chain of explosions completely consumed Obito.
Konan's body used the blast wave to push herself off the black receiver, retreating backward.
She tapped her feet lightly on the sea, neutralizing the impact force, and landed dozens of meters away.
In the air, Konan's eyes remained fixed on the center of the explosion, not leaving it for a second.
"Did it work this time?"
In the past, every Akatsuki member knew she could turn her body to paper.
But this, the immunity to physical attacks, was her trump card. She had never shown it to anyone, saving it for this very moment.
A sudden counter-attack, just when the enemy thought they had won.
BOOM!
Amidst the continuous explosions, a distinctly different sound was heard.
The Obito engulfed in flames dissolved into a puff of white smoke.
Another clone.
"He's so damn sneaky..." Alex cursed inwardly.
Perhaps due to his influence, the battle between Konan and Obito was now vastly different from what he remembered in the anime.
He had to be on high alert, watching the battlefield every second, to prevent Konan from being killed.
Dozens of meters away, Konan landed softly on the sea.
"Got you..." At that exact moment, a low whisper, like that of a demon, entered her ear.
It was as if someone was speaking right next to her.
And, in fact, they were.
Behind Konan, a transparent vortex rapidly formed.
A pale right hand emerged first, instantly clamping down on her right shoulder.
"It's over." Uchiha Obito stepped completely out of the vortex.
"Only one person has ever escaped my grasp. Unfortunately, he is no longer in this world."
"Your paper jutsu that immunized you from a fatal blow was surprising. But this is the end."
Kamui was already active.
It was just a hand resting lightly on her shoulder, not even using force, yet Konan felt as if she had lost all her strength.
Her body went limp. Her right hand could no longer grip the paper sword, letting it fall.
The papers circling her also fluttered down from the sky.
Even her chakra went silent.
Her body instantly reverted from its paper state back to flesh and blood.
An unknown spatial force enveloped her, completely neutralizing her ability to resist.
Her body began to shimmer with a distorted, spiraling effect. She was being pulled into the Kamui dimension.
"Am I... going to die? I... I can't accept this. Yahiko, Nagato..."
Konan had lost all power. Her heart sank into the abyss.
Images of Yahiko and Nagato flashed through her mind. The final image settled on the day Nagato spoke with Naruto.
"I'm sorry, Naruto. I won't be able to see the world you described. I failed to kill the world's greatest darkness..."
She wasn't afraid of death. She just regretted... failing to finish what she had to do.
"No! You can't die!!"
In that split second, Alex moved.
Poof! The paper sword, still falling through the air, suddenly burst apart.
Along with all the other scattered papers, under Alex's control, they all transformed into three-inch-long paper knives, shooting toward every inch of Obito's body.
Since Alex was born from Konan's paper jutsu, he could naturally control a portion of the paper himself.
"Impossible!" Faced with this inescapable, all-angle attack, Obito was mentally shaken.
"You've already lost all ability to resist! There's no way you could counter-attack, much less control those papers!"
He had absolute confidence in his Kamui.
After all these years, once he grabbed someone, only the Yellow Flash had ever escaped. Everyone else was helpless.
They were all sucked into his dimension, their lives in his hands.
And Konan's current state of helplessness was no different from anyone else he had captured.
So why could she still control her paper jutsu to attack?
Obito couldn't understand.
But no matter how much he disbelieved, the attack was real and already upon him.
The instant the attack neared, Obito abandoned his attempt to absorb Konan. He immediately activated his intangibility.
The hand on Konan's shoulder became like a phantom, passing right through her.
Without the interference of Kamui, Konan immediately felt her body return to normal. Her chakra flared back to life.
She didn't have time to think. She immediately leaped away from Obito.
At the same time.
The dense swarm of paper knives, under Alex's control, had already passed through Obito's entire body.
Useless.
Obito's intangible body was like a ghost, leaving only a phantom image in place.
Seeing Obito unharmed, Alex felt a surge of disappointment.
But the next second, Obito's expression contorted in pain. His right eyeball trembled, as if he was enduring some intense agony.
"What's wrong? I shouldn't have hit him..."
Alex's thought cut off. A strange and absurd feeling welled up in his heart.
Obito was injured.
It was just... a rather private and... unique injury.
A small tear had been ripped in the trousers between his legs.
A round, pale orb... was squeezed in the gap.
As Obito writhed in pain, the torn fabric could no longer hold the orb. It slipped out.
Plop. It fell into the water.
Right at that moment, a small black fish swam over, sniffed the pale orb, and swallowed it in one bite.
"No!!" Obito roared, his voice cracking with despair.
The sound startled the small fish, which darted into the deeper water and vanished.
"That... that's Obito's... testicle, isn't it? The right one..."
This was truly a sorrowful... loss.
At this moment, as a man, Alex almost felt sympathy for Obito.
Perhaps one of the paper knives had been too precise.
Or perhaps Obito's right side, which had been crushed by the rock, still had some lingering... lag, even after being repaired.
The result was that his right testicle failed to phase into intangibility along with the rest of his body.
And thus... he suffered a tragic loss.
This dramatic scene also registered in Konan's eyes.
Even as cold as she was, her mouth fell slightly open, her pupils wide.
She wasn't just shocked. She was completely, utterly dumbfounded.
For a moment, she forgot to wonder why her paper jutsu had attacked on its own when she had lost control.
Alex had already flown back to his original spot.
Konan's chest.
Feeling the familiar softness and milky fragrance, his heart finally settled. He was content.
"Now this is where I'm supposed to be."
He looked at Obito in the distance. Even from so far, he could feel the explosive rage and killing intent.
"Next up is the famous scene, right? I hope Konan sensed the 'arrangement' I left..."